on government insists it's judicial system, remains independence. the intensifying campaign against descent was underscored by president changing things with it to hong kong. last week, he warned against a repeat of the street protests of 3 years ago, insisting the territory had moved from chaos to order. adrian brown, al jazeera hong kong and spending more few any time on our website address that is our 0 dot com ah, or top stories on al jazeera, you k government has been plunged into crisis by the resignation in quick succession of 1st the health minister than the finance minister, both savage and richie soon access, they no longer have any loyalty to premier to paras. johnson following a series of scandals. the resignation, letters were published as johnston was apologizing for the latest scandal to plague

his administration. the revelation that will promoted an m p despite knowing about allegations of sexual assault. about 2 and a half years ago, i got this complaint. ah, it was, it was something that odd was only raised with me, very cursory, but i wish. okay, that we heard, i in particular had acted on it and that he had not continued in junk because he then okay, went on, i'm afraid to behave as far as we can see, according to the obligations that we have very, very bad sore. i'm sorry for being badly affected by russia has struck several targets across ukraine's eastern donetta region. as a warrant, as a new phase, moscow's horses have turned their attention to capturing denette sk after president vladimir putin claim victory and neighboring new hands. providence officials say a market in the city of yan scores hit on tuesday, killing these 2 people and injuring several of us. attacks have also been reported

in chrome task and moot. nato has signed off on the accession protocols for sweden and finland allowing the to nordic countries to join the military alliance. once parliaments ratify their membership, both sweden and finland have been neutral for decades, but pushed from membership after russia invaded ukraine. us state department has defended a 3rd party investigation into the killing of ounces. a journalist showing a black claim for the palestinian officials, reacted with anger and condemnation to report released on monday that concluded she was likely killed by israeli gunfire. but there was no reason to believe she was deliberately targeted. state department says it will remain engaged with israeli and palestinian authorities to ensure accountability. one of those which officer is to stay with us now to 0. the stream is coming up next and i'll be that with more news for you after that to me, then if you can. thanks, georgia. bye for now. ah

ah. i as i me ok. thanks for watching the stream. u. s. companies in the past have claimed that they had no idea that the products that they had made what benefiting from force labor. now the brand new weaker force prevention law makes the companies in the us responsible for making sure that none of that goods are made using forced labor. what difference could this make for consumers? and for the garment industry, that is our show to day, we start with the u. s. senator mark rubio,

who is incredibly enthusiastic about this new import bad here is far too long. companies like nike and apple on amazon and coca cola we're using forced labor. they were benefiting from force labor or sourcing from suppliers that were suspected of using force labor. these companies sadly, were making all of us complicit in these crimes. it's a common sense bill that says, if you make things in john, then you need to prove that there is no slave labor involved in making it before you can bring that stuff into the united states. this is a conversation that impacts all of us wherever we are in the one of your consumer. this conversation is about you as well. jumping to you to be part of our discussion . let us meet your panel. so you know, you're going to be talking to joe, ha, cur sofi. so lovely to have all of you here on the stream. doha, welcome back, please. we wanna audience who you are and what you do. hello, my name is joe. ha, ha. i am forced labor project quoted here at the worker rights consortium. i am

wheeler. i nice to have you back. can please say hello to our international viewers . yes. hi, my name is kurt gibbs. i've been working in china for the last 19 years. i am currently at the university of san francisco work, not a book on, on china and the experience of foreign businesses. there. i'm also the immediate past president of the american chamber of commerce and char, thanks for being with us care. and so we welcome to the string. nice to have you tell us what, who you are, what you do. hi, and so few tannhauser and the author of worn at people's history of clothing, and i'm a writer based in brooklyn. all right, so i'm going to show you a map view as of the shingles region of china. have a look because i'm going to get jo, hard to tell me about the human rights issues with this region, and then come to tell us why it's such a big business region and industry goes to this area. so here we are just going to

map it out for you. change i, when you look at that, joe hall from the human rights perspective, briefly because we've talked to you about this before, what is going on, but there is now a law preventing american businesses from doing business day. if force labor is being used. should jack for the past few years, the chinese government has been implementing repressive policies in the region in the names of poverty alleviation combating or religious extremism and countering terrorism. but in fact, they've been implementing different, as i mention, different kinds of repressive policies like force widespread state one or forms of force labor practices for sterilization force birth control and gender based sexual harassment and surveillance. me. i'm one of the items of such repressive policies. i grew up having bugging devices my home. now i am separated from my

family members for the past 9 years. i have at least 4 to 5 family members. my family are, are in locked up in prison or in a come. all right, i'm going to just remind audience what the region is, where we're talking about again on that map. so they can see it. tell us from the business and industry perspective, what does she drank? mean for china and for the world. you know, she's young. i mean, it's enormous place, right? i mean, it's got a gdp of about $200000000000.00 a year. it is the largest province in china. it's also about the size of mexico. and i think this is an important point because some of the things that we're going to be talking about here around the human rights issues, which definitely exist. i mean, the human rights issues in shin young have been well documented by scholars and other reputable organizations in beijing so far as not really address the issues i would like to, to, to address, you know, in the, in the lead up, you know, you quoted, you showed sen. rubio, comments, and you, i would,

i would take issue with that. i mean, again, she's young as an enormous places, a lot of different things happening there. so, you know, most of the american businesses have been operating in china for many years operate at a very high level of ethical standards and, and have done made, made great efforts at auditing their supply chains. beijing thus far has been doing things that are say, less than cooperative and in the sense that they've been restricting activities of something audit firms that, that, that would be involved in making sure that there's no force labor in the supply chains. i think it's important to note that if you can't have an independent auditor come in, it really is impossible to say that force labor isn't present. and that's one of the things that rights groups have pointed to in the past. that if you can't have an independent auditor come in, it's not possible to say that you know what's happening on the ground care. yeah,

i would agree with that. i would agree with that. i mean, having independent, transparent 3rd party auditors is really critical. and, you know, organizations like the better cotton initiative. and so i think what's happened is, since foreign companies have not been able to get that kind of visibility and transparency, they've unfortunately had to withdraw from, from function young entirely. and i think that's unfortunate because again, there's a lot of different things happening can change. i mean, it's an enormous place. and, and again, the force labor may be happening in certain parts of it, but to sort of punish, to punish the entire province for, for, for the actions that may be happening in some parts of it. it's, it doesn't really seem logical. so i am just looking here at a spokesperson from a chinese government official. what is there to prevent when force labor is non existent in change? i us week of forced labor, french and at is built on lies. and she designed to go off the she's young,

strong economic sectors such as agriculture, solar industry, to impoverished and stabilize the region. so joe ha, if so as, as earlier, the other 2 is because mention that there is no the due diligence auditing is not possible in the region. the auditors, the moment they land in the airport in the region, they are locked up as well. workers cannot speak to auditors or investigators freely and but still there have been survivors made the stuff that were made out of the region and have skipped to central asia or to the us. we have forced paper camp survivors who have testified on your experience, experiences, how they happen for they were forced to work, making glows or force to teach in a camp or force to force to make other types of products, whether it's sweaters or shoes. there are 4th labor survivors out there that can

testify on, on their shoulder evidence and how force paper does exist in the we or region. and also there are various reports from that were released from shuffle hall him universities, the laundering, catching report the under broad day light report and also other recent reports on p . b. c. an old document documented how the global supply chains are heavily complicit in the legal force labor. so we will actually goes to sophie's point, if you don't mind me jumping point was, was talking about, you know, the, the audit trails. i mean, so it's, and it's one thing for beijing to simply deny it, but you, but they need to provide that level of transparency so that we can see what's actually happening in there. that one of the thing to point out, i mean, you are as is talking about the situation and she and john, and i think that's the one that's getting the most attention right now. and it's,

it's, it's the issue that has the most direct impact on global business. i think it's important to, to, to also point out that there's other human rights issues in china as well. and let's not forget about that. ready to be china host as imprisoned human rights lawyers and others who've been defending people in china who are advocating for women's rights l g q rights involved in land disputes with the government. so there's, there's a lot of other issues there there as well. i'm going to bring in a new voice, so if anyone come straight to me, if i, if you wouldn't mind this is doug berry. that's correct the earlier he's communicate to me. excuse me, comes on publications, vice president of the us china business council. we were wondering about enforcement. how do we enforce a lot that makes companies responsible for what and how their products are made, making sure they're not using force labor. this is what doug told us earlier. the good part so far has been that the u. s. customs border protection office which is

responsible for enforcing the law has done so in a very targeted and focused manner. it's not going to be that they're going to grab everything that comes from china and scrutinize it for forced labor. so the good part is, is that it's limited and focused. there is a law in effect, and the u. s. companies are determined to follow it. and they are fully supportive of following in every ducks sounding quite positive that, that this law could actually work. and he is being enforced well, i mean, i think there's a lot of hopefulness and there should be there's a lot of unknowns how strictly it will be in for us. what kind of transparency we'll have from customs and border protection to allow the civil sector to see how well it's being enforced and whether or not it will become active globally. so

currently, if a batch of goods is detained, the company importing those goods, has the ability to simply export them to a country where the span isn't in play. so there's a question there of how global the reach of the span will be. i agree, i like to add on by great point sophie, that is why it's so crucial for other countries to also apply to other countries to to pass similar law then for companies around the world to apply single unified standard. just like, just like for their markets in the u. s, they cannot be, they should not be hypocritical and private pretend to be carrying about human rights in the u. s. and go direct, redirect their shipments to, to canada, to australia, to you, and they're not making those countries a dumping ground for fourthly, we're tinted. good. i'm going to bring into a voice, you know? yeah, yeah, you can 1st and then i'm going to put, let me just go ahead, show me just make a quick point. i think that's, that's true that there has to be sort of a unified approach in

a multilateral approach because that's true. you know, with these goods, especially since we're talking about cotton, that's a, that's an input. so that can be easily shipped to say, vietnam or bangladesh. and then these products end up coming into that you were united states. anyway. i would agree with the part that this, this, this law will be implemented for sure. and companies have no choice but to but to comply. however, i would actually point out that i actually would disagree. i don't, i don't think it's going to impact. i don't think it's going to protect the rights of wiggers, and i don't think it's going to stop forced labor in china. and here's why. the way that the law has been drafted, it's using this, this thing called a rebuttable presumption. and what this means is, again, back to sen, rubio comments that are just making this assumption that everything in coming from st john is, is, is, is coming. they're being made with course labor. and that's really just not that not the case, especially, and the importers are being forced to prove that force labor is not being used,

meaning that they have to prove a negative, which is actually next to impossible. and let me just explain that with an example . if i can so, so for example, if, if, if, if i run a red light, that's a traffic violation should be if i'm guilty of that, it should be easy not to prove. what if i'm asked to prove that i have not run a red light any time in the last book? how will i go about doing that? i less so analysis back to the weakest. jo. ha, how do you prove it? how do you prove that goods are being made using force labor? if china won't allow people into the sheen? jang region which is typical behavior of bias by is go to see where their products are produced, how they're produced, how the labor works. that is classic behavior if you've got a production area outside of your own country or even in your country, so to come to the point he didn't. how do you prove it?

indeed it is very difficult. that is why supply can transparency. it's so crucial, and that is why it's very important for companies to know where their source of sourcing from who are working to make those products. and then there are companies weren't able to disclose those data because they have been tracing their supply chain since the beginning before the law had passed before for the labor we were forced labor issues had ever existed in the past. they have been doing a good job and a lot of those companies have not be heavily impacted by the, the passage of the law. and if the such a brand can do which that means other brands, it is feasible for other brands to do it as well. it just matter of cost a matter of field and it is difficult. of course, we cannot deny that it is going to be heavily impacting some industries that have not been doing a good job in verifying and monitoring their supply chains and tracing their data tracing their raw materials. so if he's almost as if the brian says like,

let's see what we can get away with. let's see if we can do this. it's going to save us so much money if we don't have to make sure the app products are made ethically. i think it's, i think it's very important to acknowledge what a huge role the u. s. government industry in particular has had and creating the situation in john as it now stands in 1992. so 30 years ago, congress passed a bill that would have forth china to improve its human rights record if it wanted to gain preferential access to us markets. george h. w bush vetoed that bill under intense pressure from retail executives that companies like gap and kmart and limited who wanted to continue to be able to access cheap chinese made garments since 2006. u. s. has imported by far more garments than any other country on earth. and since 2018, it's been really hard to ignore that there are internment camps active in on and yet companies are still doing business there. so it's

a long time coming. and i think the u. s, should be at the forefront of the fight against force labor inch in john because we've really been at the forefront of produce up throwing billions of dollars into a region where this is happening. i am wondering if we're at a stage where we're grappling with global accountability for how our products are being made. can i just do a quick po and just check with you as to who's responsible as it consumers, the companies or corporations of the government? sophie, o 3. i think that because corporations are the one profiting from this, it should be their duty foremost. but they operate within structures created by the government and consumers of course provide that profit ultimately. so i think i had to rate them, i would say corporations, governments and then consumers at the bottom. i mean, yeah, you guys are very much agree with what so he just said, i think the us going to have to pass such a lot because companies had not been doing their job if they have honestly

disclosed their supply chain data, have honestly not been complicit in force, they were to be honest. the, there were reports for the labor had been out since early 2018. 2019 w. r. o have been passed since companies have more than enough time to be warned on the such. laws might be coming, but they chose to be continued to stay and profit from we were forced labor whose fault is that the company is wanting to profit off this. we were forced labor and now they should not be complaining that this law is. that is going to be enforce rigorously. they should not, they don't have to, they don't have their right to complain on that. i would agree with that. you know, all 3, i mean every, everybody, all the constituencies have a responsibility to, to, to make sure that force labor is not in their supply chains. i would certainly agree with data put, i would put a little more emphasis on the responsibility of governments and especially the

government in beijing, you know, to, to provide more transparency. because i think there's this understanding here about what, what companies really desire companies desire to have clean supply chains. they want to be free, of course labor. every, everybody agrees about worst labor present. but how can i, can i just ask you? because you're so experience when you, when you talk about companies and working this young region, you know this area intimately if company say it, but then don't do anything. is that commitment is that accountability? if you say that they really care, can you give us an example of how much they can? well, well again, i mean it's a, it's a, it's a question of transparency is right now, paging has, has actually limited access to the region. they have restricted the activities of some of these 3rd party supply chain audit firms. and so they've, they've made it very difficult for foreign companies to operate with chin shops. so

to meet, that's the issue. it's a, it's an issue of transparency. so they nation, if they could get the contract from knowing what they know right now that there's a possibility that perhaps some of the products a made using forced labor. what do i do? oh, they withdrawal, they, they, that's what's going to, we're going to see here, response to the u. s. lpa. what we're going to see here is because the law is next to impossible to comply with. what we're going to see here is we're going to see companies withdraw from, from exchange young, entirely, an agenda. i look at that, it's a shame because there's so much, it's such a large problems and there's so many different different things happening there. but also didn't respond to the to, to the law. there's going to be a lot of confusion and delays that because as a practical matter it's still unclear what the, what the customs border patrol. ready guidance, the guidance is there, but it's still unclear as to how to exactly to comply with the options and supplies

i have and bring in some thoughts from obvious watching on youtube. right now, i'm gonna share that with you. so say ricardo poor boy caught is an option. is it? and then david says, it's not just garment is tesla. apple. nike. sophie, i absolutely, it's night. his garments and i mean solar panels are a huge component of this and sort tomatoes. but i think the boy cock question is interesting. i mean, a historical parallel that occurs to me. here is european textile manufacturers were completely reliant on slave cotton from the u. s. in the 1900 century, when suddenly the civil war interrupted their supply. what did they do? russia rushed into central asia to colonize it, to grow a supply of rock cotton. the british intensify their control over india. so basically they lost the source of, of rock cotton and they just created human rights crises and ecological crisis elsewhere. so are we going to see brands now just intensify ecological distress and

other parts of the world as they rush to find other sources of rock cotton. and that's the real concern for me. and i think it's why it's important to think beyond jong and think ecologically. and from a labor perspective about the global trace of cotton. in general, i'm going to bring in cali, crime. then i'm going to come straight to joe hall, but have a listen to chloe festival. because this isn't just about the activity you got to have one door past. it has to be a bigger picture, his chloe. and then joe hall, just come and meet off the back of the video. truly the pressure on the chinese government and the systems are pieces. when you see other governments around the world industries comparable laws, the absence of such laws and other countries, particularly creek risk that b markets become dumping grounds for weaker force labor goods. i'm particularly the case given the under the us law. if a company have a shipment sees it can simply re export the shipment to another market. and that's why recalling another government, in particular,

the year which the world's largest single market to introduce was, was important for labor goods. i very much agree with chloe's point. i'm preventing other countries from a dumping ground. i also wanted to go back to what i mean earlier. nation whether cut cotton is the only sector that we should be carrying about. so the, the cutting industry is the most talked about because it's close as i guess it's closest to consumers lives because everybody bike load thing doesn't matter for rich or poor. and also 84 percent of the cut in production of chinese from that we have a region that is 22 percent of the global cut and output at the same time as also as mation solar industry. and that is the key material for the soul industry. polysilicon that is 45 percent of the world's polysilicon is produced in the weaver region and also tag hair prod, outside tomatoes. any, any sector at the structure and no responsible corporations for any sector ship the

source. and from that we have a region. yes indeed. there are many things that is happening in that we were region, but what we, what we do know is that there are over 1800000 and we were people are locked up in red keisha camps are going through occasional training. schools are, are locked up in factories to working conditions that strongly indicate force labor . and the chinese government is even proud and advertising it and considered calling it so cool for poverty alleviation. while a lot of those people who are locked up are either a medical doctor is a dentist. professor is like my father or nurse as people who have wives and families and jobs before. ok, i am going to leave a conversation with russian who actually has a thought for our view is who consumers around the world. he she is my own sister, dr. hussain abbas was taken as

a hostage. her punish me for exposing china's gen site and policies could be making the shirt that's on your back. and the weaker professors seamus, why? do's, successful business people and the pop stars could be picking your cotton? there are perpetrators and the enablers under genocide. and when you use the company's products and those companies who are using will force labor making all of you d enablers, i want to show you one more thing and it's here, my laptop is a weaker force labor database. go to www dot j w w dot org slash wicker dash china false labor database. you put a little section in here. you put the company name in there. it will tell you if

the groups or the company has false labor connections in the sheen jam region of china. thank you guys for being part of today's show. i will see you next time. take everybody ah ah

ah sake that mm hm. and then international anti corpse excellence award boat. now for your hero, in the 19 fifties and sixties african countries gained independence from their colonizers and increased efforts to reclaim the cultural heritage and 6000 bodies. as story. yeah, it's very hard. this new series reveals how european countries refused to request

and even exhibited human remains in that museums restitution africa stolen off episode to return on our jazeera, we understand the differences and similarities of cultures across the world. so no matter how you take it will bring you the news and current affairs that matter to you. ah, i know, i'm darned taylor in london. the top stories on al jazeera, the u. k. government has been plunged into crisis by the reservation in quick succession. a 1st, the health minister than the finance minister. both such a job id and richie soon i could say they no longer have any loyalty to prime minister bars. johnson following a series of scandals. the resignation, letters were published as johnston was apologizing for the latest scandal to plague his administration the revelation, but he is promoted in m p. despite knowing.